$130M SWIMMING HALL OF FAME PROPOSED FOR OCEANSIDE

Oceanside 
The Florida-based International Swimming Hall of Fame is looking for a home on the West Coast, and Oceanside is one of the prime candidates, officials say.

Developer Sherman Whitmore is working with an organization to pitch a swim museum and hotel and water park complex on a 55-acre section of the El Corazon property in central Oceanside.

Whitemore said El Corazon would be ideal for the project because of its location in sunny Southern California, where tourists and athletes abound.

The project, estimated to cost about $130 million, would include a 400-suite hotel, a 30-acre water park, a 70-meter pool, dormitories for athletes, six beach volleyball courts and trails that could be used for triathlon training.

It would be a major step up for the hall, which now runs a 7,500- square-foot museum tucked in an aging aquatic complex in Fort Lauderdale that draws about 12,000 visitors a year.

The organization isn’t affiliated with USA Swim — the agency that oversees competitive swimming in the U.S. — but its board of directors includes former Olympic gold medalist Donna De Vorona and several executives with ties to the sport. Legendary swimmer Mark Spitz is the board’s chairman emeritus.

David Jay Flood, an architect and former commissioner for aquatics for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games who is consulting on the project, said that the hall’s museum probably wouldn’t draw too many visitors to Oceanside, but the hotel and aquatic facilities make the project stand out.

“Basically, it’s a destination resort for sports,” said Flood.

City Manager Peter Weiss said the City Council recently agreed to let staff begin talks with the developer, but that there are many questions about the project that have yet to be addressed — including how it will be financed.

“You have this wonderful idea; now you need to show us how you are going to do it,” Weiss said.

The group’s 50-year, rent-free lease agreement with Fort Lauderdale expires in 2015, said Bruce Wigo, president of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Wigo, who is credited with helping to turn around the nearly bankrupt USA Water Polo in the 1990s, said the hall is looking to expand and that the Fort Lauderdale facility is just too small.

The organization’s board of directors would ultimately like to have multiple Hall of Fame sites in different cities in the U.S. and abroad, Wigo said.

Debbie Baldwin, general chairwoman of the San Diego-Imperial Swimming Committee — the organization that oversees local swimming competitions — said the Oceanside facility could help draw large swim meets to the region.

El Corazon is a 465-acre, city-owned property that is bordered by Oceanside Boulevard and Mesa Drive between El Camino Real and Rancho del Oro Drive. The hall of fame complex would be in the section near Mesa Drive and Rancho Del Oro Drive.

The city, in partnership with Sudberry Properties of San Diego, plans to develop 97 acres of the site as soccer fields south of the proposed hall of fame hotel and water park complex.